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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27568312">Hairanoia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_wing/pseuds/on_the_wing'>on_the_wing</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dappervolk (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Control Issues, Gen, Hair, Paranoia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:21:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>658</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27568312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_wing/pseuds/on_the_wing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Glume wakes up to find that something is very, very wrong.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hairanoia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the 2020 Dappervolk fall creativity prompt, "Glume was Pranked." </p><p>I couldn't find anything that said it was against the rules to also post it elsewhere, so here it is.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Glume woke in a silent instant. No arrow of sunlight could pierce her deep and hidden bedchamber, but she knew the dawn had not yet come. Another thing she knew: an intruder had been there. </p><p>Tossing the coverlet aside and climbing out of bed, she let her anger manifest into a crackling, purplish ball of light and sent it buzzing about the room. Who had been here, and what was their purpose? What had they done?</p><p>Her bookshelf and its well-loved contents were untouched; so too were the shelves that held the trophies and keepsakes that she had collected over the years. The protective amulet of amethyst, rowan and raven feathers hung undisturbed on the wall above her bed.</p><p>She pulled out each drawer of her dresser to rummage inside for hidden hex bags; she flung open the closet door and rifled through her gowns. Nothing. </p><p>The vanity? She examined her ebony hairbrush: maybe the intruder had stolen a few strands, but there was no way to tell. She opened each pot of paint and bottle of scent; nothing seemed amiss. </p><p>Glume let out a huff of frustration. The intruder must have changed <em>something</em>—what could it be? She glanced out of habit at her reflection in the mirror, and screamed.</p><p>In her smooth dusky locks, white as a worm, lurked a <em>grey hair</em>.</p><p>She tore the noisome thing from her head and hurled it into the fire. It sparked, curled up, and died, leaving only a bitter smell. Glume stood in front of the mirror, combing frantically with her fingers to check for any others that might be hidden there.</p><p>Someone had clearly cursed her. She was far too young and vital to have sprouted this…<em>excrescence</em> herself. The game must be a slow one: to drive her mad by gnawing away at her youth and beauty day by day, hair by hair, line by line. Or perhaps it was an illusion, meant to convince her that she was growing old, withering, losing her power.</p><p>Was that a wrinkle between her brows? Nonsense. The light was dim and flickering and entirely untrustworthy.</p><p>Illusions…could it be Mycel who had cursed her? Possibly, but the fungus witch paid so little attention to her own appearance that it seemed unlikely that she would understand the strategic value of aesthetic self-presentation.</p><p>Could it be Barclay? Spending time around his nauseating exuberance would certainly age a person prematurely, but she had succeeded in avoiding him almost entirely so far. Besides, he seemed much too stupid. Or was it an act? Perhaps he was a three hundred-year-old warlock, keeping himself deceptively youthful-looking through long-lost potent magicks. But anyone with that kind of power wouldn’t need to squabble over a little forest in the back end of nowhere; he could juggle entire kingdoms like pebbles.</p><p>Could it be Irin, as revenge for “cluttering” the forest? Magdalene, in some plot for financial gain? The world-hopper, for obscure alien motives? Someone…from home? No, they’d never find her here.</p><p>This was ridiculous. She couldn’t live as a prisoner of her own paranoia. If someone was trying to drive her mad, endless speculation would only further their aims.</p><p>Maybe it hadn’t been a grey hair at all. She had only just awakened, after all, and the room was dim. Maybe a careless spider had let fall a strand of silk from the ceiling. Ridiculous things. She tolerated them because they kept the moths out of her closet, but they left such a mess.</p><p>It <em>must</em> have been a strand of spiderweb. Because otherwise that would mean that her oldest enemy had found her. Was still there in her chamber, waiting and watching, counting off the seconds, the hours, the days until she let her guard down. Until she became weak, and human, and mortal. </p><p>No one changed Glume, not even time itself. She lifted her chin and strode upstairs to touch up the temporal warding spell.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Someone was supposed to have "pranked" Glume by changing her hairstyle while she slept, but I figure it still counts if she was pranked by the passage of time and the inevitable failure of hair dye....</p></blockquote></div></div>
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